Aid-in-dying advocates bring petitions to Cuomo

People who say the terminally ill should have a legal option to end their lives with medical aid presented petitions to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday, asking that he and the Legislature make that change.

About 7,500 New York State Fair attendees signed the petition, which asks that “a mentally capable, terminally ill adult with a prognosis of six months or less” to live be permitted the option to obtain medication to end their lives if “their suffering becomes unbearable.”

Aid in dying supporter Nancy Murphy tells her story to Gov. Cuomo's counsel Alphonso David

Credit Karen DeWitt / WRVO News

Corinne Carey, the organizer of the group, known as Compassions and Choices New York, gave the petitions to Cuomo’s top counsel, Alphonso David.

Along with the petitions, supporters brought their personal stories, including Nancy Murphy, who lives in northern New York.

Murphy’s sister lived across the border in Vermont, where aid-in-dying is legal. In June, the 86-year-old was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer.

“That day, in the doctor’s office, when she got the diagnosis, she said, ‘I want to use the law,’ ” Murphy said. “She was clear in her mind as to what she wanted to do.”

Murphy said she and other friends and relatives held a special ceremony in August to honor her sister that included a champagne toast moments before she took a lethal dose of morphine.

“Each one of the family were able to say goodbye to her,” Murphy said. “We handed her the little vials of morphine, and she drank them.”

Murphy said within 20 minutes, her sister was asleep. She died two hours later.

Opponents of the practice, which they call assisted suicide, include the Catholic Church and some groups that support those with disabilities. Kathleen Gallagher with the Catholic conference said she believes it’s “dangerous to many vulnerable populations here in New York.”

“Including the elderly, people with disabilities, the poor,” Gallagher said.

She said last year, parishioners in just one Catholic diocese in the state, in Rochester, delivered more than 12,000 signatures to Cuomo opposing the concept.

Gallagher said the views of the church were bolstered by a Sept. 6 ruling by New York’s highest court. Three terminally ill New Yorkers brought the suit in 2015, saying that the ban violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the state’s constitution.

The seven judges who took part in the case before the Court of Appeals all agreed that there is no constitutional right to using lethal doses of medication to hasten a terminally ill person’s death. They found that New York “has a rational basis for criminalizing assisted suicide.”

“They said things like preventing suicide is a serious public health problem,” Gallagher said. “And what message would it send to say some suicides are legitimate.”

Gallagher said the court also expressed concerns that the lethal dose of medications brought into the home could fall into the wrong hands and be misused.

The judges said that the governor and Legislature do have the power, though, to create a law permitting the practice.

Carey, with Compassion and Choices, said the court decision was not a setback, and she believes lawmakers can craft a measure to protect the vulnerable. She said New York’s proposal is based on laws in five other states, where there have been no reports of misuse of the law.

“Many health care professionals have now recognized that this is one part of a continuum of comprehensive end-of-life care,” Carey said.

She said in states where the practice is legal, most people with terminal illnesses do not take the option, but say it is a comfort to know that they could.

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A bill to legalize aid in dying has been re-submitted in the New York legislature.

A similar bill passed the Assembly health committee last year. Organizers are hoping to go further this year, and get a vote in the full Assembly.

Any action on the legislation would come despite opposition from the Catholic Church and some people with disabilities, like Emily Papperman at Ithaca's Finger Lakes Independence Center. Papperman is worried that legalizing aid in dying will leave people with disabilities open to coercion from doctors and family members.